lemonstar

Lazz "stole my thunder", i.e. he wrote all my answers out for me. I tend to refer to these familiar phrases as "idioms". The main issue for me is avoiding the cliches (and that's subjective) - familiarity provides a hook to draw the listeners attention in. Sometimes they provide a vivid way to sum something up, e.g. "on all fours" says everything much more colloquially than explaining that someone was on their hands and knees in a literal sense - in this case, as is also the case sometimes with idioms, they can be use metaphorically. I have a dictionary of idioms that I sometimes look at for ideas when I want to say something in a less literal or a more imaginative way. In: "Yeah I'm gonna wake up Then I'll sleep like a rock tonight" I used the sleep idiom to contrast with wake up metaphor - all (well trying anyway) to explain that I can sleep peacefully once I've finally got myself in tune with reality, the real me and the world at large. As for twists - it's nice if you can find a good one - a song I'm working on now "Goodbye Cool World" is all about global warming. I read that Shakespear is the source of a couple of thousand commonly used idioms, phases and words - many still in use today.

2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps please - splodgenessabounds

Milk and Alcohol - Dr Feelgood

Shaving cream?I have no idea what that's all about. "Beginnings" by Chicago Transit Authority - never hear of it or them - I might try and dig that song out. At times I feel that the invisible pressure (on song writers) to produce lyrics with perfect/partial/internal/initial/vowel/consonant/syllable rhymes can be detrimental to the song writing process - at times it's satisfiying (to listener and writer), sometimes clever and impressive but on the other hand I see a lot of songs crippled by a slavish determination to rhyme at all costs (come on we've all seen it - rediculous or inapproporate words used simply because they rhyme in some way), often to the detriment of telling a story or communicating a message. I wrote this song (not quite finished) just over a year ago. It was written so quickly (day and a half) that I didn't even think about rhyming until a few days after I'd written it - only then did it occur to me that I hadn't given one thought to any kind of rhyming, alliteration, assonance, etc - there is comparatively little in the song(make..mind, gonna give). On the face it rhyming "go" with "go" is one of those things that most of us would quickly earmark for a rewrite. You'd have to hear the song to decide if it works but I surprised myself although I have a few others where I was clear about what I wanted express and gave that top almost singular priority. I think it's been said on one of the boards here - there are no "rules" only "rules of thumb" and generally there is a lot of good sense in them but there are also plenty of exceptions that work. Brian Eno has made quite a few interesting points about producing (as in making/creating) music - one comment I heard on a Radio 4 program last year was that he thought "lyric writing" was the last difficult problem to be solved in music, making pop music by comparison is, in his humble opinion, now relatively easy and well understood. By way of an example from my own experience (no need for critique - I'll post it up for that sometime) verse Yeah I'm gonna wake up Then I'll sleep like a rock tonight But I'm not gonna let go Then I'm gonna let myself go chorus 1: verse Yeah I'm gonna lie down And surrender to the universe I'm gonna make my mind up I'm gonna take a hold of destiny chorus 2: Part of middle 8 As long as you can feel it Does it really matter? Do you get what I'm saying now? Because my life depends upon it verse Yeah I'm gonna leave it I'm gonna give it all away Every tiny little thing To anyone who really needs it chorus 1: verse But I'm not gonna wait for For the signals or the signs Gonna set my intention And create a new reality chorus 2:

Milk and Honey - Lennon/Ono (Oh-no!)

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys

Well that helped didn't it We could still be mining the same vein a year from now... If you can't beat 'em - join 'em One after 909 - The Beatles (about catching the wrong train apparently)

Lets get off these damn numbers or we'll be here 4ever Cloud Nine = Docile Nun Dominique - Jeanne Deckers (The Singing Nun)

1973 - Gram Parsons died, the year his first solo album was released GP, fortunately Evan Dando keeps the flame burning... "How Much I've Lied" - Gram Parsons

Sit Down - James

Get Up, Stand Up - Bob Marley

Nice one - Rudi! Rise and Shine - The Cardigans

"Come to my Aid" - Simply Red

Following on from the "Which single piece of kit" thread... I was thinking "know how" would be quite useful. I was looking at this course They seem very flexible. Anyone here have any experience of this of any similar courses? It looks like a perfectly good route to go if your're ready to commit some time and a bit of money.

"A Boy Named Sue" - Johnny Cash

I just posted this link elsewhere on another Songstuff board but it's relevent here also so... my guitar can be seen and heard here

Thanks for the links. Don't get me wrong - I haven't broken many. I was just saying that all the strings types I've used seem about the same in terms of reliability/resilience. Actually the last one I broke (first for 2 or 3 years I think) was tuning back UP from a non-standard tuning. I hadn't (really) tried any non-standard tunings - the one I tried was 1) tune the A to a G then 2) tune the e to a d then 3) then tune everything down by three semi-tones. giving C D# A# D# G a# I may post that one up for review at some point. It made me realise that it woudl b very useful to have another guitar so that I can experiement with (or, as I was in this case, specifically aiming to finish writing a song using) a non-standard and still have access to a regular tuning. Is that what you tend do?

Oddly enough in the past week I was looking at a silent Yamaha violin for my daughter and was confused as I didn't know about these silent instrument ranges - I was actually looking for an electric violin. I don't know if silent is what I want, I just wanted compact and not too expensive so I can take it with me and maybe leave it in France. Alistair - you're right - a compromise is on the cards. It would still be useful to get a recommendation. The shop I linked to is actually not that far away from where I live and I have 2 weeks off now so, as I'm already looking for another guitar and I have to go to Manchester next week I'll pop in as they have a few to look at. Never having played one of these thin body things I don't know what they sound of feel like.

Games without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel (again!) Finn - I didn't see your post a minute ago ..great minds and all that.. so.. The Name of the Game - Abba

I'll Do It Anyway - The Lemonheads

I was thinking of getting a more compact guitar as a full-size guitar in a hard case takes up a lot of space when I want to take it with me in the car when I go on holiday. I was looking around for something that wasn't too expensive (say under £200) as I'm already in the market for another full-size but last time I looked at reviews and prices it looked like a good compact guitar was going going to cost as much as a half decent full-size and I'm not ready to buy two good guitars right now - maybe a If I go here for instance the Gremlins are cheap but I've seen good reviews for both the Traveler and the Escape - anyone got any of these? May be I should just buy a good quality compact and use it as my main guitar - feels wrong to me. My sister lives in France and has a beautiful place where I really would like to go and stay and write/finish some songs off. The original idea was to buy a compact guitar and leave it there but at £400 for a Traveler I won't want to do that as I'll only see it once a year perhaps. Maybe something like a Gremlin would do the trick. Neil

The name Elixir rings a bell with me - are they the "poly" wound ones? I ordered some over the net a couple of years ago and I'm still looking for them - I don't know where I put them! Usually I use D'addarrio medium (12 top e I think) not light(top e is 11 I think) or any phospor bronze, I tried Martin and Ernie Ball but I've got no real preference - at times I've had strings from all of them break earlier than I expected. Uk - where best to order them from? Any recommendations?

I have a Cedar S6 - the top is unvarnished and easier to dink than butter! It has a nice sound, a wide neck without too much camber that's quite thin to grip - I think the cedar tops suit finger style playing more than strumming - my old spruce top Yamaha had more sustain and really rocked. The neck and frets has lasted well so far. It's well made and was good value for money - I tried a lot of guitars before buying it and frankly, I felt I'd have to pay almost double the price to get the next best sounding guitar I found (a Martin) - this was about 8-9 years ago. It's always stayed in tune very well. I'm looking for another guitar myself - this time with a spruce top. I'll take a look at the Takamines but they can be a bit pricey, not sure what else to consider at the moment. Neil